


Off the Bone

by JanuaryCafe



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe, Childhood Friends, Implied past Adam/Kavinsky, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:09:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29665014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanuaryCafe/pseuds/JanuaryCafe
Summary: Adam lifted the cards questioningly.The man shook his head. “Nah.”“Make any bets tonight? This could come in handy.”“No bets.” The man looked consideringly at Adam. “Unless you want to make one.”Adam raised a brow in question.“I lose, and I’ll buy a bracelet for every Tom, Dick and Harry I know. Even the obnoxious fluffy ones your midget made.”“Fuck you,” Blue said without much heat, half pretending not to listen.That would be a good windfall for them, Adam admitted to himself. “If you win?”“Dinner.” As the man said it, his expression didn’t change, but Adam saw a flush creep up his neck.Adam smiled slowly. “Done.” It was a win either way for him.***An AU where magic is known, but the ley line is semi-dormant so it's not super common.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 10
Kudos: 77





	Off the Bone

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I've had sitting on my computer for a very long time. It was written with the intention of making it into a bigger series, kind of a semi-post-apocalyptic (not much work to be had, overbearing government/military force, overarching threats or something, etc.), magic-is-known sort of deal where Ronan and Adam are grown up and have kind of wrangled their shit together. I'm still toying with the idea, and depending on how much I like the next book in Ronan's series, it may get written.

_I would scrub the self-hate off the bone till it exposed love._

~Rupi Kaur

The room was hot, smelled like feet and beer, and there were no goddamn windows. Adam wiped for a thousandth time at his forehead with the edge of his sleeve, feeling sweat gather in the corners of his eyes and the creases of his elbows. He never liked coming to these things, but they paid well. The bracelets Blue had made, little explosions of color made with yarn and fabric, were selling like hotcakes. The more subtle, leather and cord ones Adam had made from bits and scraps of leftover materials were selling steadily but with less enthusiasm. Apparently, Blue’s looked ‘luckier.’

Despite the downsides, like having people beat the shit out of each other a couple yards away, working fights always let Adam pay his rent for the next month. His tarot readings did well, even with the sign posted that he wasn’t allowed to predict the fights due to regulations. He was certainly capable of predicting them, and he could probably make a killing doing it, but it would be the last fight in town he ever worked at. His pocketbook couldn’t withstand that.

During a lull in customers, Adam caught a glimpse of Joseph Kavinsky across the room. At that point, Adam was hotter and damper than he had been all night and irritated from a patron who had spit at him after he had refused to pick the winner of the next fight. The thought of blowing off some steam with Kavinsky felt more appealing than it would have an hour ago, gods save him. It wasn’t a great decision, but it wasn’t the worst: Kavinsky was a known factor and was surprisingly not terrible in bed. Sometimes what Adam needed was to get dicked by someone who wouldn’t get mad when Adam threw them out in the morning, and Kavinsky was that guy more often than Adam liked to admit.

But it was too early for that, and Adam had a job to do. When Blue got back from buying them both waters, she crowed about how much better her bracelets were selling. They got into a brief competition which ended badly for Adam, and he was still trying to figure out how to market his plainer offerings when someone walked up to the table.

Adam looked up and felt his stomach flip. The man looking down at him was beautiful, and likely one of the fighters based on the way he stood and dressed. He was big but not bulky, and tall but not giant. Probably only an inch or two taller than Adam at most, but likely had about fifty pounds of muscle on him. Normally that wasn’t Adam’s thing, but there was something about the guy. From the shaved head to the edges of a tattoo coming out of his tank top, Adam had a feeling about him. Aside from the flash of immediate attraction and interest, Adam felt something else. A familiarity, almost. Likely it was just his dick trying to get him to buy into its plan.

“Would you like a reading?” Adam asked, smiling.

“No,” the man said, finality in his voice. His beautiful, deep voice was as lovely as the rest of him.

“How about one of these?” Blue held up a red and black wristband of hers, “One for you, one for your girlfriend.” She held up another in blue and green.

“There’s no girlfriend,” the man said, his eyes steady on Adam.

Adam felt a thrill go through him.

“Boyfriend, significant other, brother, sister, mother, aunt. We’ve got something for anyone,” Blue said.

The look on the man’s face said _not fucking happening_ , but before he translated that thought out loud, he paused. His hand reached out and touch one of the braided leather bands. Adam noticed then that the man had other leather bands on both of his wrists, old and extremely worn. “Same price for those,” Adam told him.

“Yeah. This one.” The man dug in his back pocket and handed Adam the appropriate payment.

Adam lifted the band and handed it over, not disappointed when their hands brushed. “You need help getting it on? Unless it’s a gift.”

“It’s for me.” The man efficiently tied it around his wrist, where it sat looking clean and new against the old ones.

“You fighting tonight?” Adam asked.

“Yeah. In a bit.”

“I can read for you,” Adam offered again, indicating the cards, “I can’t tell you if you’re going to win, but it might help you not get knocked on your ass.”

The man smiled sharply at that. “I don’t get knocked down.”

Cocky. Adam lifted the cards questioningly.

The man shook his head. “Nah.”

“Make any bets tonight? This could come in handy.”

“No bets.” The man looked consideringly at Adam. “Unless you want to make one.”

Adam raised a brow in question.

“I lose, and I’ll buy a bracelet for every Tom, Dick and Harry I know. Even the obnoxious fluffy ones your midget made.”

“Fuck you,” Blue said without much heat, half pretending not to listen.

That would be a good windfall for them, Adam admitted to himself. “If you win?”

“Dinner.” As the man said it, his expression didn’t change, but Adam saw a flush creep up his neck.

Adam smiled slowly. “Done.” It was a win either way for him.

The man nodded, his eyes tracing Adam’s face, his mouth, before he turned and walked away. Adam watched him until the crowd swallowed him. He could feel his heart in his throat, and his body tingled in anticipation of whatever might happen with that guy. Which reminded him…

“You didn’t even get his name,” Blue pointed out, “What are you going to yell when you two—”

“Hello and welcome,” Adam interrupted as two women approached the table.

After the customers left, Adam said, “There’s something…different about him. Like, familiar, I guess?”

“You know a lot of hot scary fighters?”

“No, that’s not what I mean. I just…I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s something.” He rolled his eyes at Blue’s look. “Something other than him just being hot.” And he was hot. Really, really hot. But Adam didn’t think he was wrong that there was something else, too. Whenever he looked at the guy, he heard the echo of rustling leaves in his deaf ear, though the forest declined to speak clearly to him.

Adam let himself be distracted by customers, only lightly paying attention to the matches until he saw no-name guy walking into the ring. Blue just smirked at him and nudged him toward the ring. Normally he didn’t watch them; he wasn’t a fan of any kind of violence, for all that he had been half-raised by an assassin. Hitting someone for fun or money wasn’t his idea of a good time. Nevertheless, he let Blue take over the table for a while and wandered closer to the front of the crowd.

The no-name guy walked into the ring, a confidence to his step that made the audience take notice. His challenger was a white man with skin like skim milk, almost translucent in its paleness. He was a big guy, though, bigger than Adam’s guy. The announcer called out the fight, naming the milk man as Avenger, a name Adam snorted at. Adam’s guy’s ring name was Lynch. Seriously? How edgy could the man be? It was probably meant to be really intimidating. At least Adam had some kind of name now, even if it was a moniker.

The fight was fast. Avenger started hard and got in one good hit that made Adam wince, and then Lynch was all over him, ducking and weaving and striking so quickly and so practiced that it was almost like art. Adam found himself reluctantly entertained and watched with bated breath as Lynch brought his competitor down with steady hits until the bigger man fell and didn’t get back up. The crowd roared and Lynch ignored them, scanning the audience until he found Adam. He gave Adam a quick half smirk and then turned his back to leave, not glancing at his opponent groaning on the ground.

As Lynch exited, a woman came at him, speaking angrily, waving at the crowd and making a motion with her hand that meant ‘money.’ Lynch looked unaffected, even shrugged, and left as the woman yelled at his back. Adam thought perhaps Lynch owed her money, or else he had put down his opponent too fast to make it interesting and drive up the bets. Both seemed likely.

Adam made his way back to the table to find Blue looking up at him with amusement. “So,” she said, “where are you taking him to dinner?”

“Who knows if he’ll even come back here,” Adam mumbled, unable to help the hopeful quickening of his pulse.

“He’s coming back,” Blue said with finality.

“He might be too busy.” He might have changed his mind. Lynch was hot like burning, and he had just won against a popular opponent. He could have his pick of anyone there that night.

“No, I mean, he’s on his way over here right now.” She gestured.

Lynch was cutting through the crowd at a steady pace and paused when he drew up to their table. “You ready?” he asked Adam, not bothering with a leadup.

“Um,” Adam delayed and glanced at Blue, who shrugged and shooed at him with her hand, “Sure. Yeah. Hold on a minute.” He closed his eyes for a moment and murmured a few words in Latin, and pressed his hand to the wooden table. Little shoots grew off it, each one wrapping around a bracelet and securing it to the surface of the table. When he opened his eyes, he answered the question in Lynch’s gaze. “It’s hard to watch for thieves with just one of us. These help keep our stuff from being lifted.”

“Huh. You a witch or something?”

“Or something.” Adam rose from his seat and walked to Lynch, his knees a little weak when he got close enough to feel the heat coming off of him, the smell of clean sweat and dirt from the ring, and a little iron tang behind it.

The two began to move toward the exit, and the crush of the crowd brough them closer together. Lynch’s arm brushed against Adam’s, and his skin was hot and a little damp to the touch. God, the man hadn’t even showered after the fight, he’d just come straight to Adam. The thought made his head swim pleasantly, and his palms itched to reach out and touch.

They had dinner at a little food kiosk in the Center District of the city, eating at the tiny counter provided for customers. Lynch got grilled meat on a stick and roasted root vegetables. Adam got stewed greens with chilis and sharp citrus fruit. After dinner, they walked. They spoke a little, but the conversation was light, both too distracted by being close to one another. The night felt like a dream. Adam thought perhaps he should question why he felt so strongly about a stranger, but found he wasn’t in the mood to question it too closely.

They ended the night at the door of Adam’s tiny apartment. Lynch scuffed a shoe into the chipped plank floor. “I want to see you again,” he said, voice low, eyes flicking to Adam and then away.

He was shy. Fuck. From what Adam could tell, Lynch felt the same pull when they were around one another, the same tug in the core of himself, and the man was _shy_ about it. Adam couldn’t take it anymore. Any thoughts of slowing things down, of doing what was probably the smart thing and tapping the brakes a little, left his head. Adam reached out and tangled his fingers in Lynch’s shirt, drawing him in.

Adam wanted to rush things, to kiss Lynch with deliberate intent, but his mind snagged on how hesitant Lynch seemed. Adam slid a hand around the back of Lynch's neck and gently pulled him in. He wanted Lynch to see it coming, to be able to pull away if he wanted to. Instead, Lynch fit his mouth softly to Adam's, and that took the edge off the fire driving Adam to have more, to have it faster with Lynch. The kiss was gentle, and it sent warm waves down Adam’s spine.

Slowly, they drew back, and Adam searched Lynch’s face for signs of permission or regret. When he didn’t find the latter, he said, “Stay with me.”

"I shouldn’t...fuck it." Lynch wrapped his hands around Adam's waist and drew him in for another kiss. It was deeper than the first one, and Adam found himself arching into the touch, straining to get closer. One of Lynch's hands tangled in his hair and angled his head slightly, teeth nipping at his lower lip. Adam moaned and pulled back to breathe for a moment.

“Inside,” Adam said, feeling short of words. He turned and opened the door, pulling Lynch through behind him. When the door shut, Lynch was on him. Rough hands cupped his face, and Lynch leaned in again to kiss him again.

Adam wound his arms around Lynch's back and curved himself forward, fitting to the hard angles of Lynch's body. He shifted against Lynch, gasping into his mouth when Lynch's thigh nudged between his legs. Lynch got an arm around him and drew him closer. Fuck. Adam could feel him through the fabric of his jeans, feel that he wasn't the only one who wanted more.

Adam couldn't stop his hands from touching, refused to even try to keep them off Lynch. He put his hands on Lynch's chest and gently pushed. With a noise of protest, Lynch let Adam slip out of his hands. The protest died when he realized Adam wasn't stopping things, he was moving them into the corner of the room with the bed.

A feeling of playfulness swept through Adam, and rather that question it he went with it. He hooked a leg around the back of Lynch's knee and pushed again at his chest, sending him tumbling back onto the bed. Lynch let himself fall, catching himself gracefully and grinned sharply. Adam dropped onto Lynch's lap, legs straddling him, and cradled Lynch’s jaw in his palms, softly sliding his tongue against his mouth. After a moment, Lynch opened up and let him in.

<><><>

Adam woke to deliciously sore muscles and the soft light of morning peeking through the holes in his curtains he hadn’t yet had time to fix. He moved to stretch but found himself restricted by an arm slung around his waist. Adam smiled to himself before opening his eyes. He was inches away from Lynch’s sleeping face. Giving into his urge, Adam lifted a hand and gently ran a finger down the bridge of Lynch’s nose, the bow of his lips, and settled it on his firm abdomen.

Lynch blinked slowly awake and smiled when he saw Adam. The action had Adam’s heart looping down through his stomach before settling back behind his ribs. “Hey,” Lynch said, voice rough from sleep and deep enough that it did things to Adam.

“Good morning. I forgot to ask you, what—” Adam broke off when his elbow bumped something. He glanced down and was surprised to find the bed was covered in large petals. Once he noticed them, he was surprised it had taken him so long. They were silvery blue, like moonlight on water, and shimmered slightly in a way that wasn’t normal for a flower. They smelled like the woods at night, and they were a kind of soft that wasn’t quite right for flowers. “Where did these come from?” Adam asked, curious but feeling too well-fucked to have any kind of urgency about the mystery.

Lynch, however, froze in his arms. “Shit. _Fuck_.” Lynch pulled abruptly away and wrenched himself out of the bed, gaze searching the room, hands skimming the petals as though looking for something. He scanned the ceiling, dropped down the look under the bed, and did it fast enough that Adam had only just sat up in bewilderment before he was done.

“Did you have these with you last night?” Adam asked, at a bit of a loss.

“No,” Lynch said, voice sharp. He hadn’t come back to bed. He had retreated to the wall at the bottom of the bed, back leaned against it, shoulder tight and hunched. He swore again, quieter that time.

“What’s wrong?” Adam asked, voice even. A sourness seeped into his belly. Weird romantic flower petals aside, Lynch’s behavior was what worried him most. _He changed his mind_ , Adam’s brain said, _He didn’t mean to stay over. He wants to leave but is awkward about doing it. He’s doesn’t want to be around you._ Adam shook the voice loose. “Hey, are you okay?”

Lynch didn’t look all right. He was tense, not looking at Adam. “Fine. I need to go.”

Adam’s stomach clenched. “Yeah. Um, sure. I get it.” It seemed they hadn’t felt the same thing last night. Adam wasn’t usually one to get so attached so fast. It wasn’t that he was wary of it, it was that it just didn’t happen. A surprising amount of hurt welled inside him, and he swiftly brushed it aside. “I’ll help you find your clothes.” Adam climbed out of bed, lacking any kind of reserve about Lynch seeing him nude, and felt his legs wobble a little before he locked his knees. His lower back ached pleasantly, and he could still feel the phantom sensation of Lynch inside him. Had the morning ended differently, those would have been sensations Adam savored for the rest of the day. Hell, the rest of the week.

“No, that’s not…” Lynch said. Adam felt a hand on his arm, his waist. Lynch spoke again. “I didn’t mean _that_. It’s not you.”

Adam turned and gave him a wry smile. “Really? ‘It’s not you, it’s me’? Come on, Lynch. I’m not an eighteen-year-old virgin, and I’m not exactly a stranger to one-night stands. It’s fine.” Adam shrugged a shoulder and turned to hide the hard swallow around the tightness in his throat.

“Yeah, well, I fucking am.”

“You’re an eighteen-year-old virgin?” Adam teased with effort, snagging Lynch’s shirt off the floor.

“No, I’m twenty-eight. Not exactly a virgin, but I sure as fuck don’t do one-night stands.”

“I was your first, then?” Adam felt torn between feeling pleased that he had that pull on Lynch and disappointed that it was only a one-time event.

“Yeah. I mean, no. Fucking hell.” Lynch ran a hand over his shorn hair, scowling in frustration. “No, I’ve never actually fucked anyone like that before. And I don’t want this to be just…just the once. Shit.”

Adam gaped. “Bullshit.”

“What? No it’s not.” Lynch frowned. “I want—”

“Bull _shit_. That is not the first time you’ve fucked someone.”

“I think I would know if it wasn’t,” he snapped.

“Holy fuck.” Adam eyed him up and down. “How are you so _good_ at it?” Adam remembered all three rounds, and Lynch was _stellar_ at everything they tried. “That’s not how it works.”

Realizing the source of Adam’s disbelief, Lynch seemed to relax just a little. “Don’t know what to tell you. I don’t lie.”

Adam laughed. His morning was turning out insane.

“I don’t,” Lynch repeated, voice firm.

“I believe you. I just…wow. Fuck.” Had Adam imagined how good it had been? Had he just been really hard up for a good fuck? No. No, Ronan had been…together they had been… _really_ good. Adam shook his head and dropped down onto the edge of the bed. The moon petals puffed up and scattered away from him. Right. He had forgotten them in the heat of the moment. “Seriously, where are these from?”

Lynch crossed his arms over his chest. “I can’t tell you.”

Adam felt a flicker of annoyance. “Then why did you bring them here and dump them all over my bed?”

“It was an accident.”

“An accident?”

“Yeah, man.”

Adam rubbed his palms together, his frustration building again. He watched Lynch’s eyes track the movements of his hands, focused for a long moment before looking away again. “Why ‘Lynch’?” Adam asked abruptly.

“What?”

“Your ring name: Lynch. Why did you pick it?” Adam supposed it got the point across, but still, he felt a little upset that he had had to keep using it during sex last night. It felt like a weird groupie hookup.

Lynch lifted a brow. “I didn’t. It’s my name.”

“Your parents named you Lynch? Jesus.”

“Fuck you, it’s my _last name_.”

Adam had a sudden sense of déjà vu, and then the floor dropped out from beneath him when he made the connection. Before his mind’s eye Lynch shrunk to a twelve-year-old boy with soft dark curls and a wide grin. A boy who shared his secret with Adam: he had _magic dreams_. The silvery petals spilling off the bed, their surfaces like impossible little opaque mirrors. “ _Ronan_?”

Lynch’s frown deepened. “How do you know my name?”

Ronan fucking Lynch. Adam felt the room spin around him. He pressed one hand to the bed to anchor himself and the other to his belly, which was doing its level best to twist right up into his throat. “Do you…remember a kid you used to hang out with? Parrish?” A poor kid whose father beat him bloody. A kid who disappeared over a decade ago.

Lynch’s – Ronan’s – expression went slack with shock. “No fucking way.”

Adam’s stomach dropped. Maybe it wasn’t a good surprise. Maybe Ronan didn’t feel the same surge of exhilaration and disbelief that was making Adam half ill right then.

But then Ronan’s hands were on his jaw, cupping the back of his neck. “Fuck, Parrish. What happened? How are you here? What…what the fuck?”

To his horror, Adam felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes, made worse by the gentle, reverent way Ronan touched him, as if Adam were something important to him, when that couldn’t be true because even if Ronan used to be Adam’s best friend, there was no way the reverse was true. Ronan had had a family and was a mischievous, bright kid. Adam was quiet and could be moody at the best of times and lied about all his bruises because he didn’t want anyone asking the question he himself never answered: what did he do that was so bad his father had to beat him? And then the ensuing years when he worked hard to unlearn that fallacious line of thinking weren’t exactly something he would wish on a friend, either. He swallowed and tried to figure out how to answer Ronan’s question delicately.

“I was hurt. Bad. Um, I ended up in the forest. It saved my life.”

There was no ambiguity when Adam said, ‘the forest.’ Everyone around knew of it. Some were brave enough to go in. It was said to be haunted or filled with fairy creatures. The truth was it was both and neither. Adam knew the truth of it, the truth that almost no one else in the world knew, that it was born of Ronan’s dreams.

“Lindenmere saved me, and then a man found me. He kind of raised me for the next few years.” They were closer to friends than father and son, but it was close enough. “Mr. Gray. He’s Blue’s stepfather. Blue was the girl at the table with me last night.”

“Adam,” Ronan said, eyes searching him, “What happened?”

The repeated question didn’t confuse Adam. He knew what Ronan meant: who hurt you, don’t bullshit me, tell me why you were lost.

Adam took a deep breath and curled his fingers around Ronan’s wrists. Ronan’s hands stroked soothingly across his neck, his shoulders. “My dad was really angry one night. Probably not angrier than normal, but definitely pissed in more ways than one. He hit my head and I fell. I kind of lost consciousness at times. He might have thought I was dead. Either way, I dragged myself away, into the forest. It spoke to me, made me an offer.”

“What did it want?” Ronan’s grip on him tightened.

“It didn’t know, so I offered myself. My hands, my eyes. I protect it, I watch the ley line, and I let it learn and see through me. In return, I got to live.”

“Adam…” Ronan brushed a strand of hair off his forehead.

Adam shrugged. “I can’t hear out of this ear.” He tapped his left one. “Well, almost. I hear Lindemere through it sometimes.” A shiver went through him when Ronan leaned forward and kissed just below the ear, mouth warm.

“What else?” His voice was sharp, a knife angled away from Adam.

Adam shook his head. “Nothing else. Nothing, except…I didn’t want to leave. But I couldn’t stay. I’m not sure…I don’t know if my dad meant to kill me.” He didn’t know that Robert Parrish wouldn’t have tried to finish the job another time. Purposeful or not, it would have happened at some point.

Ronan nodded. “I’m glad you got away. Even if it means my best friend vanished when I was just a little kid.”

Fuck. Adam felt a tear streak down his cheek. He swiped at it. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.” Ronan paused. “Mr. Gray was good to you?”

Adam nodded.

“Then it’s good. You were safe. That’s…that means more than anything else.”

Adam didn’t know what to say to that. Instead, he pressed an almost-shy kiss to Ronan’s mouth. “I can’t believe this. That it’s you. That you’re _here_.”

They spent the rest of the early morning being close, touching one another. At times, Adam could see Ronan thinking about what he had learned. Adam saw anger on Ronan’s face that he hadn’t ever seen before, saw Ronan’s powerful hands clench and unclench. Adam at those times pressed himself against Ronan, reminding him _I’m here, I’m okay, we’re together, I found you_.

Adam still wasn’t completely sure what was going on between them. Ronan hadn’t volunteered anything either. Adam decided he wasn’t going to question it. By lunch time, he had seemingly successfully distracted Ronan enough that they had another couple rounds in bed, during which Ronan was still bafflingly competent, a fact that Adam felt he had to test a few times, and that Ronan felt more than a little smug about once he realized how appreciative Adam was. Maybe, Adam mused afterward, feeling Ronan’s slick slide out of him, feeling Ronan’s head rest on his heaving chest, maybe it was just because it was _Ronan_ he was with.

“We should get lunch,” Adam said, aware that while he might be used to missing meals on the regular, Ronan probably wasn’t, not with his physique.

Ronan made a noncommittal noise and looked up from where he had been tracing Adam’s ribs, the slope of his hips. Ronan’s face went from gentle to something Adam couldn’t quite read. His cheeks were slightly pink, and he had a half smirk on his face.

“What?”

“I had sex with Adam fucking Parrish.”

Adam felt a flush crawl up his neck and over his ears. “Shut up.” He shoved Ronan lightly with his elbow.

Ronan laughed and reeled Adam in closer, until their chests were touching and Ronan’s arms were around him. “I’m serious. You were hot even back then.”

“I was thirteen!”

“So? I was twelve.”

Adam rolled his eyes and dropped his forehead to Ronan’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I missed seeing how you got to be who you are now.” That thought made him look up again. He peered at Ronan. “How _did_ you end up here? Illegal fights? Really?”

“What? Is it so surprising?”

Adam thought back to the sweet but wild boy he had known, with the silken curls and his deep love for his family. “Kind of, yeah. What do you parents think about it?”

Ronan shrugged a shoulder. “My dad is barely home. Mom…I don’t want to worry her.” He grimaced. “Declan hates it, though. Matthew thinks it’s cool.”

Adam felt himself light up. “How are they?” He hadn’t seen Ronan’s brothers for so long. “Matthew must be—god, he’s an adult, isn’t he?” Adam felt dazed that he had missed that.

“Yeah. A goofy one. Still better than a stick in the mud.”

Declan. It seemed the relationship between those two hadn’t thawed much during the years. Adam had always gotten along all right with Declan. They wouldn’t be best friends ever, but the thing that had gotten Adam was how protective Declan was of his brothers and his family, even when he tried never to let anyone else see it. Adam couldn’t imagine having family that wanted to do that for him. Blue and her relatives, maybe Mr. Gray, were the closest Adam would ever get. And maybe Ronan’s dislike of Declan was part of the privilege of having a family that loved him; he got to take that for granted.

For the rest of the day, they talked, fucked, showered, fucked some more, and ate a little in between. Adam quizzed Ronan on his dreaming abilities, surprised that Ronan had been able to dream the petals even by accident. “The ley line has been semi-dormant for years. How are you pulling anything from it?” and was not pleased by Ronan’s answering “fuck if I know.” It was a mystery Adam was determined to solve later, when he was less distracted by Ronan’s teeth on his collarbone and hand on his ass.

Ronan didn’t leave until after dinner. When he finally stepped out of the door, Adam felt a sad twist in his gut at letting him go. Ronan hesitated in the doorway, eyes studying Adam.

“Parrish,” he started.

“Yeah?” Adam tried not to give away how eager he was for any kind of further interaction. He didn’t do well, he thought. He didn’t care much.

“I meant it earlier. I want to see you again.”

Adam bit his lip to soften a bright, relieved smile. “Me too.”

Ronan ducked in and kissed him, deep and soft. “Parrish,” he said again when he pulled back.

Adam leaned his forehead against Ronan’s. “Yeah?”

“You should come to my place tomorrow. Eat a meal someone actually cooked.”

“You cook?”

“Like a fucking dream.”

“Ugh, no, I’m not eating dream food.”

“It’s not _dream food_. I actually cook, you ass.”

“Sure,” Adam agreed, finding that food or no food, not much would keep him away from plans with Ronan. Homemade food certainly wasn’t something to turn down, either. “You still at the Barns?”

“No. Got my own place in the city.” Ronan gave him the address between short kisses, and Adam struggled to remember it. The moment Ronan actually left, he made sure to write it down. He stared at it that night as he cleaned up and got ready for bed, unable to wipe the smile form his face.


End file.
